Christmas in America is caught in the culture wars. Conservatives continue to claim victimization in a fictitious “war on Christmas,” which can only be won by “keeping Christ in Christmas,” while progressives decry the materialism of the consumer holiday.

But the conflict is older than that. Christmas has been at the center of cultural, political, and religious wars of meaning for millennia. The Bible itself contains conflicting versions of the narrative of Christ’s birth.

What sense are we to make of the holiday? What does it matter to political movements on the left, whether Christians, atheists, or people of other faiths?